Dennis Wheatley: The Sultan's Daughter

Generals Pichegru and Miranda and thirty-eight other prominent Constitutionalists were sentenced to the 'dry guillotine\ as it was called, and transported to the fever-ridden swamps of Cayenne. The Corps Legislatif was then purged of more than two hundred members, leaving a rump that was entirely subservient to the Directors.

The coup d'etat of 18th Fructidor had also made infinitely more remote any possibility of Roger influencing some of the French leaders in favour of negotiating a peace. After five years of executions, street fighting, massacres, civil war in La Vendee and wars against half a dozen foreign nations, the French people were utterly sickened by blood-letting in all its forms. They longed for peace every bit as much as did the British. Had the Constitutionalists triumphed they would have given the people peace but, once again, as always happens at times of crisis, the Liberals, lacking the determination and ruthlessness of their extremist opponents, had been swept away. The Directory, on the other hand, was as determined as ever to carry the doctrines of the Revolution into every country in Europe, both by the thousands of agitators it sent abroad as secret agents and by force of arms. In consequence, Roger saw little hope of peace as long as the present rulers remained in power, and felt that he would be extremely lucky if he could succeed even in diverting some part of the French war effort from England.

Soon after four o'clock he was abruptly roused from his gloomy musings by a series of orders shouted from the after deck. Men tumbled up from below, others ran to the ropes and hauled on them. The vessel heeled over, the sails sagged and flapped noisily for a moment, then billowed out again as they refilled with wind. For most of the day the ship had been proceeding under a fair wind, east-south-east; now she had swung round to east by north.

At eight bells Lieutenant Formby had come up on deck to take his watch. With his telescope to his eye he had his back turned and was looking aft from the break of the low poop. Roger ran up the short ladder to it and asked him why he had changed course.

Formby frowned and pointed to the south-west. Hull-up on the horizon, but only just perceptible to the naked eye, lay a three-masted ship. 'From this distance I can't be certain,' he said, 'but she looks to me like a Frenchie. If so, she's a frigate out of Cherbourg.'

Taking the glass the young Lieutenant offered, Roger focussed it until he could see the ship quite clearly. 'She is certainly a warship,' he remarked, 'but I am not sufficiently acquainted with such matters to give an opinion on her nationality.'

As Roger handed back the telescope, Formby went on, 'Had we continued on course we'd have had to pass within a mile of her, and that's a risk I dare not take.'

'Stap me, no! ' Roger agreed emphatically. 'We'd be completely at the mercy of a ship that size did she prove an enemy. Do you think she will have sighted us? '

'1 doubt it. This vessel being so much smaller, it would be harder to pick up. If she has, we can only pray that she did not observe our change of course.'

'You mean that seeing us turn away would arouse her

Captain's suspicions that we are either up to no good or are British? '

'Hell's bells!' Formby exclaimed, quickly putting up his telescope again. 'She has sighted us. Even with the naked eye you can now discern that her three masts are merging into one. She is coming round, so intends to pursue us.'

Roger shrugged. 'She is still miles away. Surely you can outdistance her with this sloop? '

Formby's forehead "was creased with a frown. ' Should she crowd on all sail, I'd not wager on it.'

For the first time Roger felt a slight apprehension as he said, 'At least, your ship is much more easily manoeuvrable. Unless she gets near enough to menace us with a broadside you have naught to fear except some balls from her bow-chaser. Visibility, thank God, is bad. By taking avoiding action, you should escape being hit until darkness closes down and we can get away under cover of it.'

'I could, with luck, had I a first-rate crew,' the Lieutenant replied bitterly. ' But more than half my men were pressed and were landlubbers until a few months back. With such ham-handed swabs, and slow at that to obey orders, I'll not be able to get the best out of her.'

Roger refrained from comment. From his father he knew only too well how, during the years of peace, half the ships of the Navy had been allowed to rot, while the men who had manned them either starved or settled into jobs ashore. During the past few years many new ships had been built and somehow crews had been got together for them, but nearly every ship in the Navy was undermanned and there was still a great shortage of trained seamen with long service.

Anxiously now he continued to stand beside Formby, peering at the outline of the frigate in the grey light of the February afternoon. After twenty minutes she appeared appreciably larger, so it was clear that she was gaining on them.

From time to time Formby used his glass to scan the horizon to the north. He said now, ' I turned up-Channel in the hope that we might meet with a ship of the Dover Squadron. That would scare the Frenchman off; but, unfortunately, we're a long way from the Narrows vet.'

Another half-hour went by, while officers and crew stood about, or leaned on the rail, watching with growing apprehension as the frigate gradually crept up on them. When two bells were struck, announcing five o'clock, individual sails on the jib boom and foremast of the frigate could be distinguished. From the waterline she presented a diamond shape with a fraction of the downward point cut off, nine-tenths of the remainder being made up of bulging white canvas.

At ten minutes past five a puff of smoke billowed out from her bows and some seconds later they heard the report of the gun. But the shot fell far astern of the sloop and was obviously intended only as a summons to her to heave to.

By twenty past they could clearly see the crest of foam on either side of the frigate's cut-water. Five minutes later she opened fire in earnest with her bow-chaser. The first shot was short by a good two hundred yards, and half a dozen others, fired at the rate of one a minute, failed to reach their target. Yet the spouts of water sent up from the sea by the fall of each shot gradually came nearer.

Roger, endeavouring to assess their chances of getting away, thanked all his gods that the sky was overcast. Sunset could not be far off and darkness should hide them from the enemy well before six o'clock. Yet within the next quarter of an hour they might easily be dismasted, and so compelled to surrender. With one half of his mind he was trying to think up a plausible story to tell about himself in the event of capture.

Suddenly a cannon ball clanged on the iron post of the stern lantern, bounced on the deck and whistled harmlessly off at a tangent. Formby turned to Roger. His eyes were wide and his young face white as he said, 'I've never fought a ship before, sir, and our twelve-pounder in the stern is useless at this range. What do you advise? Should we continue to hold our course or risk a tack? '

Angry that his safety should have been entrusted to such an inexperienced man, yet sorry for him, Roger replied, 'You are the Captain of this ship, so it is for you to decide. Were I in your place I would hold my course but run up the white flag. That would fox them into ceasing fire temporarily. The French are not such fools as to sink a ship if they think there is a good chance of capturing her. While their Captain is nurturing a false belief that we have surrendered, with luck we'd get away in the darkness.'

'No, no! ' Formby protested. '1 could not do that. It would be dishonourable so to deceive our enemies.'